(Niskayuna, NY) - The Council on Competitiveness (Council) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) yesterday held the third in a series of high-level dialogues as part of the American Energy and Manufacturing Competitiveness (AEMC) Partnership, a three-year effort to bring together national leaders to address a rapidly shifting national and global energy landscape.
Yesterday's dialogue was held at the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna, NY – a multidisciplinary technology center spread over 525 acres. The renowned center employs chemists, physicists, electrical and electronics engineers, microbiologists, information technologists and everyone in between, all of whom work on teams to develop technologies in areas like electronic systems, clean energy, biosciences and nanotechnology.
“With GE’s more than 130-year tradition of innovation including public and private collaborations to address challenges in clean energy and advanced manufacturing – and with more than 25 percent of the world’s electricity generated using GE equipment, we are excited to work with the AEMC Partnership and to host such a renowned group of leaders,” said Mark Little, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, GE. “Building smart, sustainable partnerships between industry and the public sector is the right way to move forward to be competitive in today’s global marketplace.”
The Council and EERE continue to work together across the country in the AEMC Partnership to define key barriers, challenges and problems in the manufacturing of clean energy products and energy-efficient products. The goal of the Partnership is to generate potential models for scalable, public-private partnerships (PPPs), to increase the competitive manufacturing of clean energy and energy efficient products in the United States.
Yesterday's discussion brought together leaders in industry, academia, labor, the national laboratories, government and the non-profit community to converge on focus areas that could benefit from PPPs and the best methods to structure several specific PPPs. The focus areas of project-based partnerships discussed at the dialogue included facilitating the transition of prototypes to mass manufactured, commercially deployable products by connecting researchers to manufacturing experts, as well as partnerships to raise awareness about resources at the national laboratories and research universities available to industry.
“Public-private partnerships like the AEMC Partnership create unique opportunities and provide resources necessary for fostering game-changing innovations,” said Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy David Danielson. “Each of the models discussed today represent exciting and very real ways to expand the potential for clean energy manufacturing in the U.S.”
“GE is an excellent example of a successful company growing and competing in a global marketplace, creating innovative technologies and scaling them into commercially deployable products,” said Deborah Wince-Smith, Council President & CEO. “The AEMC Partnership aims to increase collaborations throughout the innovation ecosystem to bring similar success to companies throughout the United States. Increasing U.S. competitiveness in energy and manufacturing directly increases U.S. productivity and prosperity.”
As part of EERE’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI), the AEMC Partnership will convene one additional regional dialogue this year on October 17th, at Applied Materials’ facility in Santa Clara, California, hosted by Mike Splinter, Chief Executive Officer, and Om Nalamasu, Chief Technology Officer. The Partnership with culminate in a major, annual, Washington DC-based energy and manufacturing summit on December 12th.
About The Council On Competitiveness
The Council on Competitiveness is the only group of corporate CEOs, university presidents and labor leaders committed to the future prosperity of all Americans and enhanced U.S. competitiveness in the global economy through the creation of high-value economic activity in the United States. The Council is a non-partisan and non-governmental organization.
For more information, see the Council’s website and a full list of publications at www.compete.org. Check out the Council on Competiveness’ Facebook page for further updates or follow @competenow on Twitter.